Wallis Rigby's flying paper models

[blackshire]

Hello All,

I've found an article on paper modeling that has model rocketry (particularly boost-glider) ramifications:

Here is an interesting--and useful--article: "Making Cut-out Models for Jetex Power" by Wallis Rigby (see: http://www.jetex.org/archive/article-rigby-pw.html ). This article also lists paper modeling books that Mr. Rigby wrote on building such models of trains, planes, and boats (they include plans); he used paper and Bristol board. Mr. Rigby was a professional paper model designer and builder, and most of his paper models, such as airplanes and boats, were *functional*, with some of his paper planes (such as the semi-monocoque structure "Jetex Javelin" [illustrated in the above-linked article]) and paper boats even using Jetex power!

[Ironnerd]

Dude! Thanks for that. Good read, and those models were so sweet.

[blackshire]

Dude! Thanks for that. Good read, and those models were so sweet.You're most welcome! Your posting about your lifting body fleet inspired me to post the article about Wallis Rigby. I love his aesthetic sense. His semi-monocoque paper and bristol board construction method (a load-bearing paper outer skin with a few internal bracing elements, which his "Jetex Javelin" model plane utilized) might also work for the X-24 "Bug"- and HL-20-type lifting bodies, increasing their strength and stiffness with little added weight.

[Ironnerd]

You had to go there, didn't you? :)

I have been wanting to make a rocket version of the Martin-Marietta X-24B or the Sierra Nevada Company's Dream Chaser. This may give me something to ponder.

I figure the X-24B will have the best glide of the two.

I also want to "rocketize" my Facetmobile, which is a really great little lifting body.
[Article] (http://www.eaa.org/experimenter/articles/2010-01_facetmobile.asp)
[Home Page] (http://www.facetmobile.com/)

[blackshire]

You had to go there, didn't you? :)

I have been wanting to make a rocket version of the Martin-Marietta X-24B or the Sierra Nevada Company's Dream Chaser. This may give me something to ponder.

I figure the X-24B will have the best glide of the two.You're right--one of the X-24B's pilots, John Manke, reported in a "Popular Science" article that of all of the lifting bodies, only the X-24B had positive lift after separation from the B-52 launch aircraft; the others all fell like a bomb until they were moving fast enough to "hit their lift stride." The Dream Chaser is based on NASA's HL-20, which in turn is based on the Soviet "Spiral" and BOR-4 lifting bodies. The jet-powered, piloted Spiral test vehicle and the Cosmos SLV-boosted BOR-4 re-entry test vehicles flew well, so a Dream Chaser model should as well.I also want to "rocketize" my Facetmobile, which is a really great little lifting body.
[Article] (http://www.eaa.org/experimenter/articles/2010-01_facetmobile.asp)
[Home Page] (http://www.facetmobile.com/)Thank you for those links! I didn't know about the unmanned Payload Return Vehicle versions of the FMX-5 Facetmobile, which have gone supersonic while returning payloads from Skyhook-type stratospheric balloons at space-equivalent altitudes! I also found his airflow visualization method (wet paint on a Facetmobile R/C model) very creative!